1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to telecommunications and, in particular, to voice identification. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to initiating authentication of the identity of a caller at an intermediary device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telephone service has created communication channels worldwide, and those channels continue to expand with the advent of cellular and other wireless services. A person can simply take a telephone off-hook and dial a destination number or press a send button and be connected to a telephone line around the world.
Today, the public switching telephone network (PSTN), wireless networks, and private networks telephone services are based on the identification of the wireless telephone or wireline that a calling party uses. Services are personalized according to wireless telephone or wireline telephone number, where service associated with one telephone number are not accessible for another telephone number assigned to the same subscriber. For example, there is typically a first set of service features and billing options assigned to a home line number, a second set of service features and billing options assigned to an office line number, and a third set of service features and billing options assigned to a cellular telephone number. The networks process calls to and from each of these different subscriber telephones based on a separate telephone number.
A problem arises when a caller needs to access a service provided to one telephone number from another telephone number. Further, a problem arises when two or more people utilize a single line, but each want different sets of service options.
One of the services provided by many networks is caller identification. However, caller identification (caller ID) is limited to identification the wireline or wireless telephone number and the name of the subscriber of a service. Where multiple people share a single line, only the name of the person who establishes a service is displayed as the caller ID, often causing confusion about who is actually calling.
Therefore, in view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for identifying an incoming call according to the identity of caller, rather than the number for the wireline or wireless service from which a call is made. In addition, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for specifying services available to a caller at any telephony device, rather than just those devices for which the caller is a subscriber.
Each service provided from by the PSTN must be extensively tested for faults and requires expensive hardware for implementation. Therefore, in view of the foregoing, it would be a further advantage to provide a method, system, and program for implementing services by devices external to the PSTN.